An actually-free zone

It's great to be home. Even though I have a wild day ahead of me at work, it starts from the comfort of home and family.

Spring is sprung and all that. We have the window open overnight and the birds are getting louder by the day. It's nice to see the green showing up on the front lawn. The ground is very dry, so the new growth isn't bursting forth, but it's making progress. We may get some much-needed showers this evening and tomorrow. The dawn was red this morning.

One report concludes that spring in New England starts a week earlier than it did 150 years ago. Meteorological trend analysis is very challenging because 150 years are but a flicker in the earth's timescale. Nevertheless, it's clear that something is happening, even if our attempts to find a cause get all tangled up in our politics and economics.

Besides, New England has enough quirks and foibles, as show in the Strange New England web site, that, as the old song goes, believe half of what you see and none of what you hear.

I was on a conference call yesterday morning. One of the participants lives in Indiana, so we talked for a couple of minutes about this weekend's time change. For the first time in a long time, all counties in Indiana will observe daylight saving time. Not only is the state in two time zones, but the counties have been able to determine if they wanted to observe daylight saving time or not. The workarounds that the computer folks had developed to keep computer clocks in synch now no longer work.

Last night Sandra and I watched a PBS show that included a tour of a Washington D.C. historical site that is currently undergoing renovations. Interesting material. The guide, however, a U.S. Park Ranger, said the word "actually" at least 10 times in the four minute segment. (I counted 10, but there may have been one or two before I started counting.) The only times that I don't cringe when someone uses actually or actual is if that person is singing Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah. Then, pretty much everything is forgiven.

This hardware and software is intended to assist people with autism learn about social cues and interaction by providing indications when the other person appears to be getting bored or annoyed. I can also imagine a time when such a device would be standard issue for people in the workplace. Most nerds roll right over folks, barely noticing if the other person knows or cares what they're talking about. (Via.)